JetBlue says if feedback is good on free in-flight Internet service it will roll the service out to whole fleet

Any technophile that travels by air for long flights has wished web access was available for work and play. Slowly airlines are beginning to come around to the notion of providing wireless Internet service on commercial flights.

JetBlue says that the test aircraft, dubbed "BetaBlue", will offer free WiFi access to laptops and certain Blackberry smartphones. In the beginning, only the newer Blackberry 8820 and 8320 Curve devices will work with the service. The in-flight service will provide Internet access, chat access, and email access in-flight. JetBlue says if feedback from passengers on “BetaBlue” is positive it will roll the free WiFi service out to other planes in its fleet.

Nate Quigley, chief executive of JetBlue’s LiveTV unit told the Wall Street Journal, “[WiFi service] can support everybody on the aircraft” when asked if the service would be able to support large numbers of users concurrently.

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